AIG's taxpayer-bailout was not because of it's insurance division, but its investment division, which came up with the idea of selling credit-default swaps – financial instruments premised on the idea that home values would never decline.

"If we are going to live in a Democracy, we need to have a healthy middle class. Thom Hartmann shows us how the ‘cons’ have wronged this country, and tells us what needs to be done to reclaim what it is to be American."

—Eric Utne, Founder, Utne magazine

From Screwed:

"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America’s middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world."

—David C. Korten, author of The Great Turning and When Corporations Rule the World

From The Thom Hartmann Reader:

"Through compelling personal stories, Hartmann presents a dramatic and deeply disturbing picture of humans as a profoundly troubled species. Hope lies in his inspiring vision of our enormous unrealized potential and his description of the path to its realization."

—David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy, The Great Turning, and When Corporations Rule the World